Microsoft hires Pawn Stars to shaft Google

Microsoft has turned its guns on the Google Chromebook as the "Scroogled" campaign enters its nastiest phase yet.

Redmond has hired the stars of a reality television show called Pawn Stars to help with its anti-Google Scroogled campaign.

In an imitation of an episode of the show, a reality programme about the colourful characters who pawn their goods at a local broker, the ad features a woman entering the pawn shop and asking how much her laptop is worth, because she wants to buy a ticket to Hollywood.

But the pawn shop owners aren't having any of it.

"This isn't a real laptop," one says. "It doesn't have Windows, it doesn't have Office. Without Wi-Fi it doesn't do much at all and when you are online, Google tracks what you do so they can sell ads. That's how you get scroogled."

It's not the first preemptive strike against a rival for Microsoft during Black Friday month. As well as having a go at Google, it has revived a battle with its old enemy Apple in a bid to boost sales of its ailing fondleslab, the Surface 2.

Its Scroogled campaign has previously aimed to "raise awareness" of the various ways Google uses people's personal data to make money. ®